Smart Growth: A Sneak Peek

It's a labor of love.?

That's the case with any book, but my latest and fourth book holds a special place for me. It directly responds to your wanting more insight into using the S Curve of Learning? for your teams and organizations' growth.?

Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company?is launching on January 11, 2022, and is available for?preorder now.?

As the launch date draws near, I wanted to take a moment to give you a preview.?

As I noted in a column a few weeks ago, my two most recent books focus explicitly on disruption, first as individuals and then as teams. The S Curve of Learning? played an important supporting role in both books, serving as the structure through which we disrupt ourselves, our teams, and companies. But as I talked to various groups–as I spoke to you––it became evident that while people are intrigued by disruption, they are fascinated by the S Curve.?

It was time for the S Curve to stand on its own.?

And that's what?Smart Growth?is, a deep dive into the S Curve of Learning?. It's a simple visual model that demystifies the process of growth. Every new skill learned, every challenge faced, takes the form of a distinct learning curve. The S Curve allows you to envision how growth happens and direct yourself and others in your organization to create a culture that fosters growth.?

The book follows the three-phase growth journey along the S Curve: the Launch Point, the Sweet Spot, and Mastery.?Smart Growth?illustrates when and why growth is slow, how to keep going, what to do when growth and learning are almost too fast to keep up with, and how to leap from one growth journey to another.

For the first time, we break down the three phases of the S Curve into six stages of growth: Explorer, Collector, Accelerator, Metamorph, Anchor, and Mountaineer. Each phase of the S Curve of Learning? is marked by distinct characteristics, challenges, and thrills.?

When we start something new, we are at the launch point. Because our brain processes the new and tries to understand how it connects with the old, it has limited processing capacity. We can easily get overloaded. At the launch point, there are many new opportunities to pursue. We call this the?Explorer?phase. This phase is thrilling and awkward, and growth can feel slow with so much uncertainty. Once we decide a specific S Curve warrants further evaluation, we become a?Collector, seeking data that will help us assess the fit of the particular curve. It might still be slow, but it will also help us grow.?

As we approach the rising slope of the S Curve, we gain momentum. This is the sweet spot, and while what we're doing has not yet become natural to us, we are gaining confidence, and our growth accelerates. This is considered the?Accelerator?phase, and we experience fast growth. As we move through the sweet spot, we forge a new identity – what we do becomes who we are. It's natural and reflexive, and we've reached the?Metamorph?stage, achieving a lot of growth is in a short time. The effort is still required, but our brain picks up the pace, and growth feels even faster than before.??

At the high end of the curve, we find ourselves in mastery. We have reached our objective and maximized our potential growth. The newly learned behavior is anchored in us, marking this the?Anchor?phase. But when a skill becomes effortless, we have excess mental and emotional processing power, and we lose the feel-good effects of learning. We get bored, and things feel slow. It's time to find a new mountain to climb, and we become Mountaineers.

The book's final chapter focuses on the environment we need to expedite growth. No one grows alone, and our growth?Ecosystem?is the web of interpersonal relationships that make growth possible.?

The S Curve of Learning? is a map to see your life – where you were, where you are, and where you want to go. You can get smart about your growth when you can picture yourself moving along this growth curve.?

P.S.? Are you looking for more ways to invest in growth in 2022? The start of a new year is the perfect opportunity to get serious about your growth as an individual or the growth of your team. On January 20, join me for a unique online gathering:?Begin, Grow, Pivot, and Learn. I am honored to join three remarkable individuals: Apolo Ohno, Pamay Bassey, and Michael Bungay Stainer, for a 90-minute, interactive experience to help you ask and answer the critical questions that will leave you with insights and tools to jumpstart your year ahead.? If you pre-order a book, you will receive a free ticket to our online gathering.